Reorganization Is Not Transformation: Why Information Must Become the Army’s Seventh Warfighting Function

Small Wars Journal | David R. Cowan

The US Army is consolidating its Information Operations and Psychological Operations branches under HQDA Execution Order 083-26, merging career fields beneath the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. This administrative reorganization fails to create organic capability across conventional warfighting formations preparing for large-scale combat operations.

Relocating information expertise into special operations schoolhouses isolates scarce planners from corps, division, and brigade targeting cells. Although March 2025 revisions to ADP 3-0 and FM 3-0 frame information as a dynamic of combat power, Army doctrine omits information warfare from the six designated warfighting functions. Furthermore, deactivating the 8th Psychological Operations Group in fiscal year 2026 leaves active forces dependent on the 4th Psychological Operations Group under 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), forcing heavy reliance on delayed Reserve Component mobilizations. Institutionalizing information as a formal seventh warfighting function and evaluating non-kinetic maneuver at combat training centers represents the primary mechanism to secure multi-domain operational advantage.

Comment

The decision to locate primary information warfare authorities beneath 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) creates a structural disconnect between special operations elements and conventional theatre headquarters. Under current targeting processes governed by ADP 3-0, corps and division commanders lack direct command authority over non-organic information assets during large-scale operations. This administrative division shifts operational control away from general-purpose battle staffs, degrading the synchronisation of non-kinetic effects alongside fires and manoeuvre.

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